I LOOKED up the word resilience in the dictionary and found the following: Psychological resilience is defined as an individual’s ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity.
Stress and adversity can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial stressors, among others.
You would not be surprised if I therefore told you that resilience is a great attribute to have in life, sport and business.
In fact, a lot more people would be interested in you if they realised that you were at your best when the difficult times lay ahead.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
The good news is that whereas many people have a natural resilience built into them, it is possible with the right attitude to develop a strong resilience. One has to develop an attitude of;
a) Thoroughly examine the situation
b) Assess what is required to solve it
c) J.D.I. Just Do It
Notice I used the word situation, not problem. The mind loves making problems out of things but note a) if it is something you can solve then it is a situation not a problem and b) if it is something that you cannot solve you can always accept that you cannot solve it just now and it simply becomes a situation that you cannot solve – still not a problem.
As the great life coach and guru Eckhart Tolle says; “There are no problems in life just situations”.
I found this concept a little difficult to grasp initially, but then I realised that all the useless thinking and worrying about a problem I cannot solve, is just a useless waste of energy which may in turn become a real ‘problem’ in itself!
If we examine nature closely, we can find many examples of resilience. It is like a metaphor for resilience. An example is the little bird inside the egg. Initially at its formative stage its little beak is soft when it tries to break the tough eggshell which separates it from the outside world.
It may have pecked at the shell many, many thousands of times but to no avail.
Something inside the little bird who is now exhausted tells it to keep on going and at some stage it will do one more peck and suddenly, success – this is resilience!
What has also happened in the meantime is because the bird has used up a lot of energy in its pursuit of freedom, all that effort has developed in it a form of inner strength and an attitude of ‘stickatitness’ which will prove to be very beneficial in the outside world.
“Stormy seas make a good sailor”.
An example of the spiritual side to this is when Jesus was on his way to Calvary to be crucified to save our souls.
He fell three times on his tortuous journey. He got up each time as He knew that this was what He had to do to complete his mission on earth.
Resilience!
Next week I am going to write about the difference between “Success and Happiness”
